The Cross Legged Knight

Eighteen

Owen sank down against the wall outside the palace kitchen and let the sun soak into him. He felt his failure with Poins in his bones. The man had little more to lose, so there was precious little chance of coercing him into talking more about the fire. To come so close to knowledge only to have it incomplete — Owen’s jaw hurt he clenched his teeth so, and his stomach churned from the stench of Poins’s decaying flesh that seemed to have seeped into his skin. So Owen sat, letting his head, chest, arms and the front of his legs grow warm while those parts of him not directly in the sun stayed chilled.

His head spun with questions that might never be answered. He needed to work up a sweat, purge the stench, ease his aches. He thought about the practice yard at Kenilworth where he would fight until his head buzzed and afterwards dowse himself with a bucket of cold water, then sit in the sunshine enjoying a tankard of ale with his men. Lief was dead now, Ned exiled. Bertold still led Lancaster’s archers and Gaspare had gone on a mission for Lancaster and never returned. There was no going back.

The best he could do now to work up a sweat was to split wood or do the garden chores that required a strong back, neither as satisfying as the practice yard. Magda’s voice drifted from the kitchen. He should speak with her. But he found himself walking in the opposite direction, into the palace garden.

With Emma steadying her at the elbow, Lucie walked the paths of her garden and thought about her new piece of information. It was God’s gift to her, of that she was certain, for had Emma not walked in when the strap was lying on the bed Lucie doubted she would have shown it to her at all, and would never have known its use. That the Lord had answered Lucie’s prayer with such clarity and speed had cast out her devils for the moment. Gwenllian and Hugh had seemed much comforted by her smiling face. Alisoun had said Magda might have erred in giving Lucie such a strong tonic, for she seemed far better without it. Lucie fought to hide her unsteadiness. Slowly though she was walking, still her heart pounded and her legs felt as if they might buckle beneath her with each step. But it was worth the effort.

A strap for documents. It changed the way she imagined the scene on the night of the fire. And that gave her an idea. ‘Emma, I would see Bess Merchet. Would you fetch my scrip and walk with me to the tavern?’

Pulled from her own thoughts, Emma at first agreed, then took a good look at Lucie. ‘Your colour is much better for being out in the air. But do you have the strength to go so far?’

‘It is not so far, just past our garden wall,’ Lucie said.

In a short time they were crossing the yard at the York Tavern. Lucie tried not to lean too much on Emma, though her balance was unsure and her hand was throbbing. She should have supported it in some way, but she disliked the encumbrance of binding up her arm. Once within the tavern, she sank down on a bench and let Emma search for the innkeeper.

Bess’s ruddy face darkened as she saw Lucie. ‘I heard what happened in the Shambles.’ She stood back and studied Lucie, shaking her head at what she saw. ‘You are not so feeble as I feared, but your face boasts of its bones and I can see your veins through your skin.’ She sat down on the bench opposite Lucie. ‘I am making a pottage with meat for you. You need your strength. And Tom will bring a cask of ale to put some flesh on you.’

Bess’s mothering of Lucie was one of the reasons she did not know as much as Emma did about the past few months. Lucie wearied of advice. She did not wish to hear more about what she should be eating and, seeing that Emma was about to voice her own opinions on that, Lucie took out the strap and laid it before Bess, pre-empting a lecture.

‘I’ve seen that,’ Bess said, ‘and I know why you are so keen to know who wore it. I’ve already told Owen that I see so many belts, I cannot say whose it might be.’

‘But what of a strap round rolls of parchment?’ Lucie asked.

Arms crossed before her as if to restrain herself from touching it, Bess bent close to the buckle, then leaned back to gaze round the room.

Emma moved to speak, but Lucie silenced her with a touch and a shake of her head. She could see by the movement of Bess’s eyes that she was reviewing her memories. Suddenly Bess rose, crossed to the door of the tavern, paused with an ear cocked as if listening, frowned and shook her head, then crossed to the kitchen door and looked around.

With a great sigh she returned to the table, where she propped up her elbows and rested her forehead on her hands. ‘There is something, but — ’ Her head snapped up and she pointed to a corner table. ‘Aye, there was a man that evening, before the fire, an hour or two before, so he was an early customer. I’d seen him before, and since, and know to say naught to him, for he will not speak to the likes of me except to demand service. He had a leather strap like this round three or four rolls, perhaps two straps now I think of it, though I cannot be certain. He tapped on a buckle to his own tune — I thought him strange to fight the rhythm of the man who was singing in exchange for supper.’

‘Can you describe him?’ Emma asked.

‘A proud bearing, cold eyes and a mouth that I’ve never seen smiling, light-brown hair that lies straight beneath his cap, dressed in the colours of earth, nothing to draw attention, but of good cut and cloth. Who is he, then?’

‘My mother’s steward.’

‘Is he the murderer?’ Bess crossed herself.

‘We do not know,’ Lucie said.

‘But if he is …’ Bess glanced at Emma.

‘You wonder whether the fire was my family’s vengeance after all.’ Emma shook her head. ‘If Matthew did this, he acted on his own, for his own purposes.’

‘I am glad to hear that,’ Bess said, but there was doubt in her voice.

Lucie and Emma departed in an uncomfortable silence, nodding to passers-by in St Helen’s Square, returning to the house rather than the garden. The hall was deserted, everyone still outside. Lucie took refuge in a well-padded chair, resting her head against the high back and closing her eyes.

‘Shall I help you up the stairs?’ Emma asked. ‘You should lie down.’

‘What if Matthew lit the fire to gain your mother’s gratitude?’

Emma sank down near Lucie. ‘I have thought of that, don’t think that I haven’t.’

‘If he is guilty …’ Lucie sat up, took Emma’s hand. ‘A man who could kill so ruthlessly might do so again to hide his guilt. Your household — all of you are in danger.’

‘He had no cause to murder Cisotta,’ Emma said. ‘That is the sticking point.’

‘Such a crime committed in Wykeham’s house — ’

‘The blame would more naturally fall on the tenants.’

Emma was right. Lucie’s thoughts were growing muddled.

‘I have poisoned your judgement with my distrust of Matthew,’ Emma said.

Lucie was searching for what felt wrong to her. It was the timing. ‘On the night on which your family was dining with Stephen, who is now Matthew’s lord, Matthew dined or at least drank at the York Tavern, carrying with him rolls of parchment. Why?’

Emma did not respond at once. ‘I don’t know,’ she finally admitted.

‘You must ask Edgar what he recalls about Matthew that night. And I must speak with Owen.’

Emma crossed herself.

Owen found no solace in the palace garden, partly because his conscience kept pushing him back towards Magda Digby. In order to heal Poins she must understand his state of mind as well as his body. He returned to the kitchen.

‘Here again?’ Maeve said. ‘Has the crone cast a spell on you now?’

‘She casts no spells, Maeve.’

‘That is what you all pretend. But I trust my own eyes and ears.’

Magda greeted Owen from the small entrance between screens.

Maeve said a ‘Hail Mary’ as she bent back to her work.

Safely out of Maeve’s sight — and hearing, Owen hoped — he told Magda of Poins’s reaction to his questions.

She seemed impressed. ‘Thou hast coaxed much from him. Magda has heard so little of his voice she would be unable to pick it out among the voices of others.’

‘He sleeps a great deal?’

‘Aye. He escapes his pain by retreating from his ruined body. Nor does he have aught he wishes to say to Magda.’

‘Will he survive?’

‘Not if he continues to despair. It is the great destroyer. Already one of the burns that had begun to heal is oozing bad humours.’

‘Is that what causes the stench?’

‘Aye, as well as some of the healing burns.’

Owen left the palace feeling responsible for Poins’s failure to thrive. His presence as an inquisitor — surely that caused Poins despair as well as the wounds. Or it could be a guilty conscience. He was tired of questions and ready to work in the garden, touch the earth, get soil beneath his fingernails, but his conscience nagged that Jasper had been left in charge of the apothecary by himself too much of late.

The hall was quiet. Lucie sat on a bench, her back resting against the wall beneath the garden windows, playing string games with Gwenllian and Hugh. Through the window he could see Phillippa and Kate spreading laundry on the lavender hedge to dry.

He had expected Lucie to be abed. ‘Why are you watching the children? Where is Alisoun?’

Lucie smiled to see him. ‘How pleasant to see you here in mid-afternoon.’ The children hurried to him, demanding hugs. Lucie rose, her movements stiff. ‘Alisoun is helping Jasper modify Magda’s tonic to allow me more waking hours. I am merely sitting here playing with Gwenllian and Hugh until she returns. It is not tiring.’

‘Magda ordered bed rest. You will undo yourself.’

‘Put that aside. I have news. The fragment of belt that you found — it was not a belt but a strap, one that keeps rolled parchments together. Matthew had been using a pair of them to hold the documents Wykeham’s clerks brought to Lady Pagnell, but now has only one. Bess …’

They both turned as someone knocked on the door.

When Owen opened it, Adeline Fitzbaldric swept past him and into the hall clutching May by the arm.

Adeline’s face was brittle with tension, her posture that of one holding much back. May appeared to move solely by her mistress’s will. ‘Forgive me for intruding, Mistress Wilton, but I must speak to your husband.’

‘What has happened?’ Owen asked.

Adeline glanced at Lucie and the children who had paused in their play to study the newcomers.

‘Might I see you alone, Captain?’ Adeline asked.

‘My wife is privy to all my business,’ Owen said.

Lucie bent down to the children. ‘Gwenllian, take Hugh to the shop and stay there with Alisoun until Kate or I fetch you. Make certain he touches nothing in the workshop. I am entrusting him to you.’

Gwenllian rose and bowed to all of them, then took her little brother’s hand and moved away slowly.

With an uncertain glance at Lucie, Adeline hesitated, then laid a small bundle on the bench beside her. ‘Servants were able to enter the bishop’s house today and bring out much of our clothing and some of the furnishings. Among May’s things I found this.’ She unwound the wrapping, revealing a bloodstained cloth, two jars and a small cup.

Owen wondered how he had missed the rag. ‘What are they?’ he asked.

Adeline turned to May. ‘Tell him.’

The maid ducked her head and came forward, blinking and giving her head little shakes. She pointed to one jar. ‘There was blood in that — it’s caked now.’ She pointed to the other. ‘Cisotta called it a colliry.’ She touched the cup. ‘This was the little cup she used to hold the blood to my eyes.’

So it was a physick for the eyes. Lucie opened the jar of blood and sniffed. ‘Could this be bat’s blood?’ she wondered aloud. ‘Do you have difficulty seeing in the dark, May?’

May pressed her eyes. ‘I did not know it was the blood of such a creature,’ she cried.

Owen understood now. ‘Your clumsiness — your eyes are failing, aren’t they?’

May was on the verge of tears. ‘Aye,’ she whispered.

‘Not just at night?’ Lucie asked.

May shook her head. ‘Would that it were.’

‘That is not all she has concealed behind that timid countenance,’ Adeline said, taking a seat with a little huff. ‘May, tell them the rest.’

Lucie motioned for May to sit. She seemed in need of support. The maid sank down and for a moment buried her face in her hands.

‘She has been like this ever since I confronted her,’ Adeline said.

‘You did not know of her condition?’ Lucie asked in a tone of concern, not accusation.

Owen took note of it, for Adeline did not bristle, but only sighed.

‘I did not know the cause of her recent accidents. There has been so much to do with the move, and since May had never been so far from home, I thought it a passing problem. May, speak up, woman.’

Owen held his breath as Lucie moved the jars and cup closer to May and sat beside her. He feared May would be silenced by Lucie’s nearness.

‘May, have you told the Riverwoman about your eyes?’ Lucie asked.

May shook her head.

‘Do you fear her?’

Another shake of the head.

‘Do you visit Poins?’

Owen was about to tell Lucie that he had already asked May about that, but the maid raised her eyes to meet Lucie’s.

‘I don’t know what happened, what caused the fire.’

It was an interesting answer to the question.

‘I pray you tell us whatever you do know,’ Lucie said. ‘I was Cisotta’s friend. I would know what happened that night.’

Tears streamed down May’s cheeks. Lucie pulled a cloth from her sleeve and handed it to the maid.

‘My mistress’s visitors spoke of how Cisotta had sat by you day and night after you lost your child.’ May spoke in such a choked voice that Owen crouched down to hear. She started at his nearness.

‘He is my husband, May, and no one to fear,’ Lucie said softly. ‘So what you heard led you to seek Cisotta’s care?’

May pressed the cloth to her eyes, then wiped her nose. ‘I had given her my mistress’s old gloves in payment. I was so afraid when I saw them today.’ She sniffed. ‘That night she brought me the remedies and showed me how to soak my eyes in the blood, then rinse them once a day with the wash. Then I was to lie still with my eyes closed until I heard my master and mistress return.’

Owen asked, ‘Did you escort Cisotta out of the house?’

May shook her head. ‘She said she knew the way.’

‘Where was Poins?’ Lucie asked.

‘I don’t know.’ May shivered and hugged herself. The room was almost too warm for Owen, the brazier burning because of Lucie’s weakness.

‘Was anyone down in the undercroft that evening?’ Lucie asked.

May shrugged. ‘I was frightened about having Cisotta there. About what my mistress would say if — ’ She cut herself off.

‘But if you were so concerned, did you not check to make sure no one saw her arrive or leave?’ Lucie asked.

May looked down at her hands. ‘I did not think of that. I have never before lied to my mistress. I do not have the knack for it.’

Lucie looked up at Owen, her eyes questioning whether she should continue.

Adeline understood the expression. ‘She claims to have no idea where Poins was or whether anyone was in the undercroft at that time,’ she said. ‘So I thought to question Poins. But the Riverwoman would not let me see him.’

‘I was just there with him,’ Owen said.

‘Yes, I know. I watched you leave. I had hoped to keep this private.’

Lucie lifted the other jar and sat for a time sniffing and thinking. Adeline rose and began to pace. May kept her head down, sniffling now and then.

‘Fennel and ground ivy,’ Lucie said. ‘And a little nettle seed. You were to dampen the mixture and apply it to your eyes?’

May nodded. ‘She was to make more. She said it would take a while because she must soak it in wine and then let the sun dry it. I was to go to her in a few days. She said in a week I would see better. But the fire kept me from the medicines. And she — ’ The maid held her stomach and gulped air, as one about to vomit.

‘I shall fetch you something for your stomach,’ Lucie said. ‘I’ll send it with the captain when next he goes to the palace.’

‘That would be kind of you,’ Adeline said. ‘But how can I take her back there? What am I to do with a servant who is going blind?’

May stared at her mistress, her eyes glassy with tears and horror.

‘Comfort her,’ Lucie said. ‘Have Magda Digby examine her.’

Adeline Fitzbaldric was not one to comfort a servant and her expression said as much.

Owen thought it time to be blunt with her. ‘If May leaves your household before this matter is resolved, the gossips will declare one of you guilty of Cisotta’s death and the destruction of the bishop’s house.’

Adeline drew herself up straight as a board. ‘We shall leave the jars with you,’ she said. ‘Come, May, we have said all we came to say.’

‘Is that truly all of it, May?’ Lucie asked softly.

The maid was fiddling with the jars and the cup on the blood-stained cloth. ‘Yes, Mistress Wilton,’ she whispered.

After Adeline and May departed, Lucie and Owen stood by the window staring out at the garden for a long while without speaking.

Owen tried to piece together all he had learned just now of that fateful evening. ‘Despite her timidity, May is a determined woman to have found her way to Patrick Pool to bargain with Cisotta,’ he said.

‘It is the sort of mistake Cisotta might make, thinking bat’s blood good for any problem of the eye.’ Lucie’s voice shook with emotion.

Owen gathered her in his arms, listening to her ragged breathing, trying to imagine what Cisotta’s death meant to her. In his mind Cisotta had been a poor substitute for Magda, and he had thought her efforts to cheer Lucie and encourage her to resume her life inadequate. He was certain Lucie would have recovered much sooner had Magda cared for her from the time of the fall — a part of him even thought the baby might have lived. He wanted to find Cisotta’s murderer more out of a sense of justice than as a personal vengeance. But he understood that for Lucie it was the latter.

‘What were you telling me about the belt? Have you been about with it asking questions of folk?’

‘Emma recognized it.’ Lucie stepped away from him, told him what had transpired and what Bess had remembered. While she talked, she wandered over to the things May had left. ‘I’ll take these to the shop and see whether I can pick out any other ingredients.’

Her strength was returning and Owen was glad of it. But he worried that she was doing too much. ‘You must rest now. From what you’ve told me you’ve been out of bed for a long while. Let’s go up and you can lie down while we talk.’

‘I should prefer to do this.’ Her voice was uncertain.

‘Come. Up the stairs. I must confess to you how close I came to knowing Poins’s heart before I failed in my talk with him.’

As often of late, Thoresby grew drowsy as the sun set, in the hour or so before the evening meal. He fought to concentrate on the letter Brother Michaelo was reading to him, but it became impossible and he allowed a velvet stillness to envelop him. He found himself in a moonlit room scented with roses. His dear leman Marguerite slept with her head on his shoulder, radiating such warmth that his arm was soaked in sweat. As he slipped it out from beneath her, she woke and turned to him. Suddenly the bed pitched and yawed. He woke at sea, bereft of his dream of his love. The pile of rope on which he reclined cut into his back, but how beautiful were the stars overhead, how peaceful the sigh of the ocean and the gentle rocking of the ship.

‘Your Grace!’

The voice pulled Thoresby from the dream. Someone leaned close.

‘Your Grace, the Riverwoman begs an audience.’

For a moment Thoresby was not certain where he was, in what time. The scent of lavender reminded him of Brother Michaelo. But he had not been Thoresby’s secretary during his years with Marguerite. He reached round and plucked the crumpled pillow from behind him, held it in his lap and studied it, then looked about the room, slowly remembering. He was in his parlour in his York palace, listening to letters from supplicants, avoiding the strangers to whom Wykeham had so presumptuously extended his hospitality.

‘Who?’

‘Mistress Digby, the Riverwoman.’

‘She would not beg.’

Michaelo sighed with impatience. ‘Will you see her?’

‘She will have my head on a platter if I do not.’

Michaelo leaned close again and, reaching out his long, slender hands, paused. ‘Might I adjust your cap and surcoat, Your Grace?’

‘Do you think she will be offended by my appearance?’

‘You are the Archbishop of York. It is not fitting that you be seen in disarray.’

‘It is you who are offended. You do not like that I am old.’

Michaelo looked pained. ‘Your Grace, I am devoted to you.’

‘The crone has been here for days. Why must she see me now?’

Michaelo drew a comb through Thoresby’s thinning hair.

Thoresby rose and crossed to his high-backed chair, noticed they were alone. ‘Where is my page?’

‘I thought perhaps you would prefer to speak with the Riverwoman alone.’

There was something in his secretary’s tone. ‘You know what she wants, don’t you?’ By Michaelo’s blush he saw he was right. ‘Is that why you have kept everyone out of the room above the kitchen? You’ve been spying on the sickroom?’

Michaelo cleared his throat. ‘Your Grace, she waits without.’

His secretary was a sly creature.

‘Very well. I shall see her.’

He felt himself tense as Michaelo opened the door and bowed to the wizened woman. Magda rose from the guard’s chair with a limber grace unexpected in such an ancient of the labouring class, a commanding figure despite being a good four hands shorter than the monk. As she stepped across the threshold she did not gaze round the room as one would expect but sought Thoresby at once and bowed to him. ‘Thy Grace.’ Her voice seemed to echo in the room.

‘Mistress Digby, we are all grateful to you for the life of the servant Poins.’ Thoresby began to raise his hand in blessing, but thought better of it. She nodded to him, for all the world as if thanking him for not embarrassing both of them. He wished her gone as quickly as possible. ‘What is your request?’

‘Poins fears he is dying, Thy Grace, and according to thy customs wishes to be shriven. By thee.’

‘Me?’

The white-haired crone nodded once. ‘He says he will have no other. Thou wert kind to him and he trusts thee.’

‘He wishes to be shriven now?’

She shook her head. It was a queer cap she wore, of so many colours they blurred when she moved. Her gown was the same. Perhaps that was what made him feel odd in her presence.

‘He sleeps now, but he will wake in an hour.’

‘How do you know when he will wake?’

‘Magda mixed his physick and she has watched him these few days, noting when he wakes.’

It might prove frustrating. Anything Poins told him in confession was useless to the investigation. But so be it. Thoresby might think of some way round it. ‘I shall be there.’

Magda bowed to him. ‘Thou hast a good heart.’

*

After her afternoon of air and exercise, and a draught of the modified tonic, Lucie slept for a few hours, waking when Phillippa came to ask whether she wished to take her meal with the family in the hall. Dropping her legs off the bed, Lucie found that her head felt clearer, and as she rose her balance was surer than it had been earlier in the day. ‘Yes, I’ll eat with the family tonight, Aunt.’

Lamps now lit the hall and the children had been put to bed.

Owen already sat alone at the table, staring into a cup of ale. When Lucie joined him, he put an arm round her and pulled her head close. ‘I have been thinking.’

‘I could see that.’

‘Did you sleep?’

‘Aye. Very well. Have you resolved anything?’

Owen sighed, withdrew his arm and, leaning his elbows on the table, set his head down in his hands. His fingers fanned through his curls, then clutched them. She knew the gesture as one of defeat.

‘What is it, my love?’

‘The strap, the documents — I have overlooked two of the most obvious suspects — Wykeham’s clerks.’

‘You told me you had spoken to them about that evening.’

‘Aye, but the truth is I know little about them. And if the strap round Cisotta’s neck had been securing the property documents from Wykeham, it’s possible one of them is guilty.’

‘Or Matthew the steward.’

‘Oh, aye, Emma would like to hang him, I know.’

‘You must question him, Owen.’

Kate interrupted them with trenchers and a good-sized fish, as well as a fragrant pottage.

The four at table were a subdued group. Jasper seemed weary, and both Owen and Lucie were quiet in fear that they would reveal too much too soon, so Phillippa entertained them with a monologue of laundry days at Freythorpe Hadden.

Afterwards Jasper disappeared into the kitchen.

Lucie smoothed Owen’s hair. ‘Will you speak with Matthew?’

‘Aye, but I must also speak with Wykeham about his men, and the sooner done the better.’ He reached for his boots.

‘You’re going to the palace now?’

‘I am. I must ready the men for tomorrow.’

When she looked confused he told her of Wykeham’s demands.

‘Have you changed your mind?’ Lucie asked. ‘Do you think he has cause to fear?’

‘God’s blood, I wish I knew. Nothing we have learned suggests that he has anything to fear. But one man working for Lancaster’s followers — that is all it would have taken.’

‘You dislike him more and more.’

‘Aye, he sours the air he breathes.’

‘Watch yourself. Remember you do all this for Cisotta.’

‘Aye. He cares nothing about her, but I do.’

‘God go with you, my love.’

‘And you. Now to bed with you. You are too pale.’

She watched him leave, then slowly climbed to their chamber.